Roche forecasts 2020 growth, helped by new drugs and China

BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche expects sales and profits to rise this year as demand for new drugs and more business in China offsets declines in older medicines whose patents have expired.For 2019, the company reported on Thursday a jump in net profit to 14.1 billion Swiss francs ($14.6 billion) from 10.9 billion a year earlier, when the drugmaker's bottom line was hit by a series of goodwill write-offs.Sales rose 9% at constant exchange rates to 61.5 billion francs and..